


Past Their Expiration Dates

by ladyoneill



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Dark Thoughts, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Multi, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Souled Spike, Threesome - F/F/M, mild depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason slayers die young and vampires should be a thing of myths.  They all should have died long ago--both Buffy and Spike did, and Faith was in a coma for years--but they have to figure out how to keep living.  Doing it together helps, fighting the good fight helps, but it's still hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past Their Expiration Dates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mk_tortie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mk_tortie/gifts).



> Not as dark as I hoped, but I hope I got across some of my recipient's likes--happy or ambiguous ending, characters in dark places (well, darkish), caring for each other in a twisted way (well, sort of twisted), and they are slowly healing or learning to survive. I hope you enjoy it! I do love writing these characters.

There's a reason slayers rarely live past twenty. 

Wrapped in a towel, water from her short wet hair dripping onto her slumped shoulders, Buffy tiredly swipes the condensation from the mirror and stares at her reflection. Dispassionately she knows she's cute, lovely even, but her eyes are permanently shadowed from the hard life she leads. Her once beautiful, long blonde hair has been chopped short to keep it out of the way, framing her sharp cheekbones and pointed chin. Her lips are thin, almost always frowning or pulled tightly together.

And her eyes are ancient.

Faith steps naked from the shower, grabs her own towel and uses it roughly on her body. She's more curvacious than Buffy, but angular and thin in her own way. 

Her eyes are the same as her sister slayer's.

Old and hard.

Leaning one hip on the counter she watches Buffy apply concealer to the bruised skin beneath her eyes, then reaches for her pack of cigarettes, lights one and draws smoke into her throat, out her nose.

"Nasty habit." Just as it's Buffy's habit to bitch about it.

Faith smirks and takes another deep drag. "Not going to kill me. Slayer constitution and all."

True. There's no response to that.

"Wanna grab food before or after patrol?" the younger slayer asks, stubbing out her cigarette and exchanging it for the blow dryer.

"I'm not hungry."

As Buffy slips out of the bathroom, Faith calls after her, "That's not what I asked," but she doesn't push it.

She's not hungry either. Not for food at least. She hasn't killed anything for three days. Her skin's starting to itch with restless need.

In their bedroom, Buffy drops the towel and opens the left top drawer of the dresser they share, grabbing a pair of lacy blue panties. While they wear each other's outer clothes often, she's a size smaller--two cups smaller in bra size--so they keep underwear separate. She slides them up her legs, hears a groaned protest from the bed, and rolls her eyes.

"Not patrolling naked."

"Now, that would be a pretty picture." Leering at her, Spike sits up and drapes one arm over a raised knee, his own body naked and littered with bruises and bite marks.

Buffy glances at him, sees the evidence of her teeth around his right nipple, and feels a tingle between her legs. Sometimes she likes hurting him.

And sometimes Spike needs it.

Sex with him is fantastic, wild and hot and passionate, but, oddly enough, the only time it seemed to be truly making love was before he regained his soul.

Now, half the time, he wants to be punished or that Victorian morality raises its ugly head or he fights against it by going overboard in the other direction.

Since there are always orgasms all around, Buffy doesn't complain or try to change the way they are in bed.

Neither does Faith.

Buffy adds a white sports bra, then covers it with dark brown pants, a black sweater, black boots.

Spikes sighs in regret and slides from the king sized bed, wincing at the lingering ache in his legs and his ass. Not that he regrets that Faith decided about a month ago to try the strap on dildo she uses on Buffy on him. Girl's enthusiastic and the thing vibrates.

Still, he's not as young as he once was, and forty or so minutes of hard pegging after being ridden by Buffy for over thirty minutes, left him with unaccustomed aches. Idly he scratches at his bruised chest, hissing softly at the sharp sting in his nipple, but there are no regrets.

He probably won't be able to get it up for a week, but...

Naked, Faith strolls out of the bathroom and starts to dress quickly and efficiently, all in black and gray.

He misses them wearing bright colors, jewelry, ridiculous high heels. They hardly ever go out for fun anymore. Living off the Council's funding, they don't have to work, so all they do is patrol, kill, and recover.

And fuck each other.

Stomach growling suddenly, Spike heads for the shower. There's nothing specific on the agenda, so he'll let them go on patrol without him, while he goes hunting for dinner.

Like L.A, London has plenty of demons lurking in every dark alley, not to mention humans so evil and so far above the law, even his slayers will turn a blind eye to his feeding on them.

Sometimes he craves fresh, human blood.

Most of the time he can refrain from killing.

Most of the time.

"Heard about a graknor demon, maybe a nest of them, munching on addicts and hookers off Greek Street," Faith says as she runs a comb through her hair.

Buffy opens their weapons' wardrobe and takes out her favorite stake and a couple of knives, then digs out her wire garotte. "Have to decapitate those, right?"

"Yeah. And they slime up the place."

"Yuck."

"Bonus, though, we'll only be a couple blocks from Chinatown."

"I could go for some dim sum."

Leather jackets conceal their weapons. Pocketing their mobile phones and wallets, each giving Spike a quick kiss when he comes out of the bathroom, they head out of their mews home just off Sloane Square. They easily fit in with the young crowd heading out for a Friday night of parties, clubbing, or dinner, and it's one stop on the District line to South Ken, then fifteen minutes or so on the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square where they join the throngs of people.

It's late September but the weather is good and the moon is coming up nearly full.

"Dim sum first. Don't want to track slime into the restaurant."

It's early, too, so Buffy nods and they get a table at their favorite Chinese restaurant on Gerrard Street. The owner greets them with a smile and gives them free beer--they cleared out a poltergeist three months before for him--and they order their usual dishes from the passing trolleys.

"How about if we deal with this situation tonight, we take tomorrow night off, go to a movie and make out like teenagers or something."

Buffy shrugs and picks at her spring roll. Ten years ago that would have been her dream Saturday night--well, not with Faith; back then she had no clue she was bi. Wanting to make out with Faith--and Faith with Buffy--came out of nowhere and hit them both over the head like an anvil. Now, though, it's hard to get excited about much of anything.

"Ennui."

"Huh?"

"Is this just going to be it for the rest of our lives? Which, y'know, were supposed to be a lot shorter."

"You've lost me, B." Frowning, Faith munches on a pork rib. 

"There's a reason slayers aren't supposed to live this long. Is this it? Fight? Fuck?"

"It's what we're made for."

"Before all this, I had dreams. Wanted to be an artist like my mom or sell real estate like my granddad or, I dunno, be anything, but this."

"We save the world."

"...A lot. I know." Sighing, Buffy signals for another beer, her appetite, what little there is, gone. "I just...I think I'm tired."

Reaching across the table, Faith squeezes her hand. "Hey. What's brought all this on?"

"I dunno." She takes a sip of her new beer and forces down a bite of shrimp dumpling to counter the alcohol. 

"We both tried retirement, B. We spent three years teaching and training the new kids. It didn't work. We're adrenaline junkies. We couldn't stay out of the field."

"All we're doing is chasing death. It caught me once when I was nineteen; should have kept me."

"Yeah, well, my coma was near death, too. We both beat the bastard back. It'll come soon enough, you know."

"That's my point. I think we've outlived our purpose."

"Tell that to Mr. Cheng." Faith jerks her head in the direction of the restaurant's owner who is tending bar. 

Slowly Buffy nods in acknowledgment. "Yeah, you're right. It's nearly the anniversary of my first death. Maybe that's why I'm so fucking melancholy right now."

"I do get it, Buffy," Faith responds softly. "This is a hard life. But it's not pointless. You taught me that. And, hey, we're still way younger than Spike. He's going to outlive us."

"He hates that. It's why he's so reckless."

Faith laughs. "No, that's just Spike. Overcompensating for the wuss he was when he was human."

Lips twitching at that truth, Buffy finally snorts as well. "Yeah, you're right. Our knight in tarnished armor, beating the baddies to impress us."

"Or because he digs the violence."

"True. Think he might want to join us in killing a graknor or two?"

Grinning, Faith takes out her phone and texts him the details. A moment later her phone chimes with a return text informing them he'll meet them after dinner.

They both chose a long time ago to ignore his feeding on the occasional human. There are times nothing will do but fresh human blood. If he kills, which is rare, well, they're always bad people, and that's on his soul and he deals with it. They turn a blind eye because...well, none of them can seem to function without the others.

An hour later they meet up outside the Pillars of Hercules on Manette Street. The area is crowded, people spilling out of the pubs and restaurants to smoke and chat--just the kind of atmosphere graknors like. If Spike smells like fresh blood, Buffy like the whisky chaser she had after dinner, and Faith like the cigarette she's just stubbed out, they ignore it.

They have their ways of coping.

And they're always better together.

Spike claps an arm around the shoulders of each woman and guides them down the dark, narrow street, a grim smile on his face and guilt tearing at him.

A good demon kill will help.

Hopefully later they'll go home and get drunk in front of late night telly, and while his slayers get much needed sleep, curled together in their decadent bed, he'll pour out his pain in words to paper before passing out between them. If they're lucky, none of them will dream and tomorrow will be a new day.

For now, there are demons to kill and people to protect and the world, if only this small corner, to save.

End


End file.
